Luo Lan, who was traveling at high speed using Super Flash, soon saw the city walls of Valgard. Seeing that the pursuers behind him were no longer making any moves, he finally let out a long sigh of relief.
The city walls in the night looked like a crouching giant beast. The youth leaned against the cold wall, panting heavily.
After the recent struggle, his mana, which had only just begun to recover, had hit rock bottom once again. His body felt as if all its strength had been drained, his fingertips were slightly numb, and even standing was a bit of a struggle.
Luo Lan slid down to a sitting position against the freezing wall. The cold air penetrated his clothes and pricked his skin, but it served to clear his somewhat dazed mind.
After resting for a moment, Luo Lan felt around in the storage space of the Atlas Cube and pulled out a mana potion, biting off the cork and gulping it down.
Although it was just a drop in the bucket, it was at least enough to support him as he climbed over this section of the wall that was currently under repair.
Luo Lan stood up, stretched his aching joints, and then quietly climbed to the top of the city wall using both his hands and feet.
Just as he vaulted over the battlements, a strong sense of crisis instantly enveloped him. On the edge of Luo Lan’s vision, in the shadows where the moonlight could not reach, a figure had been standing there for an unknown amount of time.
“Tonight truly is a night full of unrest.”
A gentle voice rang out from the darkness, carrying a faint, inexplicable sigh.
William Albert Wordsworth stood at the boundary of the shadows on the wall, the moonlight only illuminating half of his face. He was still wearing that somewhat casual academic robe with his hands tucked into his sleeves, looking just like an ordinary old man who couldn’t sleep and had come out for a midnight stroll.
Luo Lan’s heart sank.
“Don’t waste your energy.” The Dean took a slow step forward. “Valgard’s magic-sealing field has been activated. No magic below the tenth tier can be used. I think it would be best for you to obediently take off your mask and take a trip with the guards.”
Having said that, the Dean reached out his hand directly toward the cloth mask on Luo Lan’s face, only for Luo Lan to nimbly dodge it.
He let out a surprised “Oh?” as if he were somewhat unexpected.
“Interesting.” The Dean murmured softly, then struck again, yet Luo Lan dodged once more.
He narrowed his eyes and sized Luo Lan up, his gaze finally fixing on the youth’s deep eyes.
“It seems words alone won’t work.”
The Dean sighed lightly, then raised his hand and waved it in a certain direction.
In the next moment, the sound of rhythmic footsteps approached from far to near. More than ten Garrison Knights, their bodies entirely encased in armor, quickly ascended the city wall from the stairs. They silently spread out, faintly surrounding Luo Lan in the center.
Following closely behind were three Garrison Mages dressed in dark blue robes. The specialized equipment on their bodies could neutralize part of the anti-magic field’s effects, allowing them to use magic to a limited extent.
Luo Lan’s gaze quickly swept over the gathering Royal Guards. At this moment, he had no intention of getting entangled. A purple glow flashed, and the crowd discovered that the youth’s figure was already a hundred meters away inside the city.
“This… what is this?”
The Dean’s mouth hung open in surprise. Even he had no way to use Flash while suppressed by a tenth-tier anti-magic field.
He narrowed his eyes, looking in the direction where Luo Lan had disappeared, then looked down at his own feet. The light of the magic-sealing field still firmly enveloped the entire city, and the mana inertia in the air had not changed in the slightest.
“How interesting.”
The Dean curled his lips, and several tenth-tier buffing spells stacked onto his body. Although the rank of these spells was exactly what the magic-sealing field restricted, they could still take effect thanks to the caster’s ability; it was just that the consumption would be much greater.
Then, he reached out to a Garrison Knight beside him: “Lend me your sword.”
The knight froze for a moment, then unbuckled the standard-issue longsword from his waist and handed it over.
The Dean weighed the sword, which felt slightly light to him, flicked his wrist to perform a simple sword flower, and then jumped down from the city wall, chasing in the direction where Luo Lan had vanished.
—
Luo Lan’s flash speed was very fast, and in the blink of an eye, he had disappeared from the Dean’s sight.
He slid down to a sitting position against a cold, rough stone wall. This alley was very narrow, only allowing two people to pass by sideways. Above his head was a dim night sky cut into a strip by the buildings on both sides.
The magical street lamps of the main street in the distance cast a faint yellow light at the mouth of the alley, but it could not penetrate this thick darkness at all.
With trembling hands, he fished another bottle of mana potion out of the Cube’s space and downed it, then guided that weak warm current into his mana circuits to soothe the burns caused by overloading.
Luo Lan didn’t know why he would run into that old geezer guarding the city tonight. Had something happened in Valgard?
Suddenly, he felt a strong sensation of being watched, but it only lasted for a moment before vanishing without a trace. Luo Lan pursed his somewhat dry lips and then quietly walked out of the alley.
—
Deep within the palace of Valgard, at the top of an inconspicuous high tower.
There were no windows here, but the walls and the dome were flowing with a miniature phantom of the entire city of Valgard—streets, buildings, moving crowds… Other than that, there were no complex crystal balls or magic circles, only a figure slumped in a chair.
He looked very young, no more than twenty years old, with a pale face and soft, pale blonde hair clinging to his forehead. His body was wrapped in a thick wool blanket.
He was “The Watcher,” a special mage who was incapable of using any offensive or defensive magic but could monitor the movements of all of Valgard in a unique way.
The communication array beside the chair lit up with a faint glow, and the voice of William Albert Wordsworth came through, carrying a rare sense of seriousness.
“I’m looking for a little friend. He just used a few… unusual little tricks near that old section of the eastern wall. He should still be in the vicinity.”
“The Watcher” did not answer, but simply raised his hand and tapped the air in front of him.
—Information delivered.
—
In the shadows deep within the alley, just as Luo Lan had put away the empty bottle of the second potion, a figure carrying a sword appeared unhurriedly at the mouth of the alley.
The Dean walked into the alley slowly, carrying the standard-issue longsword he had borrowed from the guard. The tip of the sword trailed casually on the ground, drawing a thin line on the pavement.
The streetlights shone from behind him, stretching his shadow long and distorted until it reached Luo Lan’s feet.
“How exactly did you do it?”
The Dean asked curiously.
“Clearly, the strength of your mana circuits isn’t outstanding—at your age, it’s above average at best—yet you can use a Flash that even I almost couldn’t catch under a tenth-tier anti-magic field.”
Luo Lan stood silently in the darkness. The Dean waited for a few seconds, and seeing that he remained silent, he laughed to himself instead.
“To be honest, I’m becoming more and more interested in you. If it weren’t for the fact that Valgard is restless tonight, with certain rats in the sewers getting restless again while the warmth of the Holy Ceremony has yet to fade… I would be very willing to officially invite you to my study at Atlas Academy for a chat right now.”
“I’m not interested, and you should know that you can’t catch me right now.”
“I can’t catch you?” The Principal shrugged. “How will we know if we don’t try? Besides, I happen to know a bit of basic swordsmanship in addition to magic. Anyway, it will still take some time for the City Guards and mages to reach this place. This alley is so secluded, why don’t we take this chance to have a simple spar?”
“The rules are simple. If you win, I won’t pursue tonight’s matter. If you lose… you will obediently come back to Atlas Academy with me to stay for a few days. I guarantee on the honor of the academy that I won’t harm you; I just have some questions I need to verify with you. This proposal is fair, right?”
“And if I say no?”
“You are certainly free not to accept.” The Dean’s voice remained steady. “But in this capital of Valgard, you are not the only one who can move freely under this tenth-tier magic-sealing field.”
Luo Lan pursed his lips. He knew that once he was entangled by this old geezer, it would be difficult to escape.
However… a long-suppressed spark also quietly rose in his heart. He still clearly remembered being threatened by that purple light sphere on the night of the Holy Ceremony. That old face, which always wore a lazy smile, looked particularly punchable in the dim yellow light of the alley entrance.
If he could land a solid punch on that old geezer’s smug face, how satisfying would that be?
“Fine.”
As soon as the word fell, Luo Lan flipped his wrist, and a short blade appeared in his palm.
[Conceptual Fantasy], the anchor was still Alya.
This was the advantage of the Atlas Cube and being a Mystic. The vast majority of the former’s functions were not affected by magic-sealing effects, while the latter could switch the mana attributes in the mana circuits at any time. The combination of the two meant that this anti-magic field was not all that troublesome for Luo Lan.
But for others, that might not be the case.
The silent conversion was completed deep within his consciousness. Luo Lan lowered his center of gravity slightly—a simple movement that made the Dean’s eyebrows twitch.
In the Dean’s eyes, the feeling this young man gave him suddenly changed.
“Hmm?”
In the next moment, Luo Lan moved.
The youth sprinted close to the ground, the short blade drawing a fierce arc. His crisp movements were a world away from how he had been on the city wall earlier.
A flash of surprise crossed the Dean’s eyes. His wrist flipped instinctively, and his longsword accurately clattered against the side of the short blade.
—If he hadn’t reinforced himself with tenth-tier enhancements beforehand, he might truly have been suppressed by this young man.
But he was no pushover after all. Although this narrow alley hindered the use of a longsword, the Dean could still barely maintain a stalemate.
He just didn’t quite understand. This was clearly their first time meeting, so why did the other party seem to have such a great grudge against him?
Every one of Luo Lan’s strikes carried a sense of venting anger. Within a few breaths, the two had exchanged dozens of moves.
The sound of metal clashing was as dense as a sudden rainstorm, constantly echoing in the narrow alleyway.
After several rounds, neither of them could do anything to the other.
Luo Lan’s mana was approaching depletion once again, and the bonuses brought by Alya were also declining. His muscles began to ache.
Just as he was preparing to change anchors, he discovered that in addition to Thrúd, Alya, and Ophelia, a new name had appeared on it.
[William Albert Wordsworth, Sync Rate 11%]
Although the sync rate was so low it could be ignored, a line of even smaller text was flickering like a heartbeat just below the name.
[Tenth-tier Magic: Sphere of Annihilation analysis complete and successfully recorded]
That was the purple orb the Dean had used to threaten him on the night of the Holy Ceremony.
The little iron book had actually captured that old geezer’s mana signature during his fight with the Dean and reverse-engineered that spell.
Luo Lan took a half-step back, and a bold idea popped into his mind.
—Anchor switch, Target: Ophelia Blanche.
Alya’s combat instincts receded like a tide. In order to use that tenth-tier spell, Luo Lan needed to temporarily increase the efficiency of his mana circuits, giving himself a little overclock.
The Dean keenly sensed the subtle change in Luo Lan’s aura, and thus the two were entangled in combat once again.
However, Luo Lan took advantage of every opportunity when passing by the walls to condense mana at his fingertips, rapidly sketching several runes on the wall bricks. The technique used looked similar to the rune magic Ophelia had used before.
Although there was no way to copy her hereditary magic, he could still imitate the appearance. In any case, his goal was only to restrict the Dean’s movements.
After a few rounds, Luo Lan showed a weakness. The Dean took two steps forward, entering exactly into the set range.
On the walls on both sides of the alley, four or five inconspicuous runes lit up simultaneously.
The narrow space was instantly filled with the roar of explosions and dust, blurring everyone’s vision.
At that moment, Luo Lan opened the five fingers of his left hand, palm facing up. Following the record in the little iron book, he forcibly used that tenth-tier magic, the Sphere of Annihilation.
With the help of his Mystic abilities, the mana carried in his mana circuits rapidly changed attributes. An extremely unstable purple light sphere the size of a fist condensed above Luo Lan’s palm. Before the dust could settle, the youth’s figure rushed like a ghost in front of the Dean, whose body was pinned down by rubble and bricks, and slammed that unstable light sphere firmly into his chest.
Meanwhile, his right hand had already clenched into a fist. He threw it out with all the remaining strength in his body, along with the frustration and annoyance the Dean had caused him.
—Eat my elbow!
Consequently, the Dean’s body flew out onto the main street like a kite with its string cut.
The stirred-up dust slowly drifted down. Luo Lan looked down at his trembling hand.
—He had finally elbowed the Dean once. This would bring him a good mood for at least a month.
However, he couldn’t afford to collapse here just yet. Luo Lan used his last bit of conscious awareness to activate an enhanced Flash, returning to the vicinity of the Noble District.
After the high-frequency flashing, Luo Lan only felt the world spinning, and his internal organs felt as if they had been twisted into a mess.
He could barely identify that this was one of those exquisite but deserted back alleys on the edge of the Noble District. Not far away seemed to be that small bell tower he had once used to spy on the Blanche family…
—Not good!
At this moment, Luo Lan’s body could finally no longer hold on and fell forward. Just as he was about to hit the ground, he was caught in a pair of slender, soft arms.
Ophelia looked at the person in her arms with a complex expression. She bit her lip while looking at the patrolling guards, then carefully dragged the unconscious Luo Lan into the corner of the bell tower, placing him on a relatively clean patch of ground.
The red cloth on the youth’s face had become somewhat loose during the fierce battle just now, revealing a small section of his jaw and his pale lips.
Her gaze lingered on that red cloth for a long time, and then she subconsciously reached out her hand…
Ophelia felt her heart racing, and even her fingertips were trembling slightly.
Wasn’t this that scoundrel? Why would he appear here, and why was he so weak… even though she had only sneaked out because she heard the explosion at night.
Right now, with just a gentle pull, the true face of this person who made her toss and turn would be completely exposed before her eyes.
However, just a moment before her fingertips touched it, Ophelia’s hand came to a sudden halt. She slowly pulled it back and clenched it into a fist.
“No, I am not someone who takes advantage of people in a crisis.”
The girl said, biting her lip.
“I’ll unmask you myself after I defeat you with my own hands.”
Having said that, Ophelia prepared to stand up. Just then, the red cloth on Luo Lan’s face finally could not hold on any longer and slid down, drifting to the girl’s feet.
Ophelia reflexively looked up, and her entire being froze there as if struck by lightning.